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I did a dive yesterday that really opened my eyes on this air issue.
It was the 300 for 42 that I discussed the deco on before.

  I was mixed in my stage and on my back with 11% oxygen , 60% helium
trimix. I was diving D Tunnel of Wakulla, a clear tunnel , with Casey
McKinlay and Barry Miller - both long time dive partners. I know the
tunnel, so do they - a comfortable dive.

  The dive plan was to go thorugh A to D, switch to backgas but keeping
the stages for the video effect, turn on the video lights, and go the
the last room , filming each area as we went. It was a beautiful dive.
At about 2600 feet in we found the spot where Exley and DeLoach had lost
a scooter and De Loach was towing Exley. Sheck's compass strap had got
caught in the Aquazepp prop and it ripped it from his wrist. Exley ended
up swimming all the way out by himself - an amazing feat that took all
of his gas plus five safety bottles.

  We found that compass on the floor and videoed it, with me picking it
up and holding it to the camera lens and then putting it back. I had no
trouble doing this cleanly and steadily at 306 feet. By the way this is
one of the best videos we have ever made.

  We then came across some ridiculous cluster that the usct had had,
with a line run over a bridge in the cave to the roof and back down and
then cut off and left flapping in the breeze. We wondered what kind of
panicky screwup that was about. No problem , knew what that was right
away and it did not throw us off at all.

  Moving on we got the the last horizontal room ( then there is a
vertical room with a 100 foot rise but we did not want to get into that
). The second to last room is spectacular, white walled with blue water
and quite large. Barry moved a little off the line into the room with
his camera, I moved sideways to the middle, and Casey went all around
the room with his video light) .

  I had my back to Barry, but could see his steady bright video lights ,
and my back to the line, concentrating on lighting in the direction of
Casey. Unknown to me, three other WKPP divers had scootered past us
behind me towards the last room. Casey signalled to us to wrap it up,
and I stowed my video head and turned the canister off. 

  But I was still all lit up. I then tried to turn it "off" again. It
went back on instead. I then turned it off again, and I was still all
lit up. I was getting concerned. I did not want to blast the battery
pack and have it offgas. I turned back to look at Barry for advice (
Casey was now in front of me stowing his light as well). There were two
Barrys!! I could see his two video lights and his primary, and three
more primarys in a triangle just like his three lights. This was
lighting me up. I scanned my light around the room looking for what was
causing the "reflection". I looked at my lights to see how many were on.
I looked at Casey again to be sure he was still on the outbound side of
me . I looked back at Barry, and then droped down to see if I was
hitting a halocline and if that was causing the "reflection". There was
none. I checked my gas - a habit when confused. No problem. I then
thought I had just seen that same reading, so I checked my left knob -
it was on. I check my gas again. Still the same, I hit the guage on my
stage tank - still the same, and then I saw it move a little when I
breathed - it was OK. All this for nothing but confusion over the
lights.

 I waited for Barry to move towards me while watching Casey - I did not
want Casey to move while I was feeling like I was "leaving" those
lights, even though I had no idea what they were, but I could not tell
which was the "real" Barry. I still did not realize that there were six
divers, not three, depsite the evidence ( I could only see their lights
shining at me, not their bodies or scooters). Then is slowly dawned on
me that it was divers, and then it was a few seconds before it
registered that they were our divers ( like where else could they have
come from), and then I was still wondering how they could have gone by
me, and then I figured that out about three minutes later. This was 5
minutes of confusion that I am glad was in a non-emergency situation.

 When we got back to A Tunnel, there were five divers at the junction ,
a cool site in a place like that, and easier to recognize since we were
now 60 feet shallower and I could see the bodies of the dives as well as
the lights . We tightened up so as not to confuse each other - the other
divers stopped and gathered above us while we got out of the way so as
not to cause a mixup. I unhooked the line form Gregg Jackson's scooter
handle as I went by - this was Bill Stones spiderweb mess floating free
in the cave that had cought Jackson's scooter.

 At deco, on the slope there were divers everywhere, and it was a
spectacular site seeing all of those lights floating up out of the cave.

 If this is what 60% trimix does with an "AED" of 85 feet in a familiar
setting in clear water with the best divers as dive partners, what is
happening to the student out there and the new divers who are getting
the Pete Hess bullshit that " if you can not do 170 on air you have no
business trimix diving"?

 We have a serious problem in the dive training industry and in "tech"
diving with the ignorance and moronity of the big mouths who have never
"been there done that" except in their own minds in the most pathetic
little weenie bounce diving do nothing way - none of these guys have
been "Downtown" or played hardball and as such have no idea what the
real story is. These people are influencing diving and that is why we
have so many "unexplained" accidents.

 It behooves all of us in the WKPP and anyone else with a brain on their
shoulders to get out there and counter the Pete hess's and other
horrendous ignoramuses in diving in and out of the "training" agencies .
We owe it to everyone to do this, since we have the real experience and
know for certain what the problems are and can see why the deaths are
stacking up. 

 We are doing things underwater for years with a perfrect track record
that none of these big mouths has ever or will ever do, and we need to
have the confindence to point that out to everyone and to take the abuse
from the Big Vons and other lowlifes and keep telling the story and keep
refering to what we really do and what our scorecard looks like, and
save some lives in the process. 

 You have all seen the extreme measure that some of the training agency
jerks have gone to in order to try to discredit me and the WKPP, and you
constantly see the viciousness of the attacks out of the 
representatives of these agencies and the deep air or bullshit equipment
crowd. We are blowing the whistle on all of them, and that is why. We
need to have the same tanacity that they do .

 There is no reason to ever be polite to a dangerous idiot, and there is
no reason not to step all over them with the facts every last time they
stick their heads up, I would appreciate it if more of our members would
take the time to teach other people the truth, and to kick some of these
strokes right in the ass publicly whenever you can with extreme
prejudice.

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